pembrook

37 ms·

601.
by pembrook 2y ago
Agreed, SEPA is objectively better than what the US has. But it doesn’t matter how easy it is the transfer money if you increasingly don’t have any. On average, governments in the EU centrally direct roughly 40% more economic activity than
602.
by pembrook 2y ago
Not sure how young you are, but I highly recommend not making decisions based on the hysterical 2-year swinging pendulum of American political rhetoric. American media is just as innovative as the rest of their economy, meaning they are c
603.
by pembrook 2y ago
These are all logical fallacies and red herrings that have nothing to do with what we're talking about. If we try to steer the ship back to the topic at hand...here's why we should be concerned that Europe's private sector is
604.
by pembrook 2y ago
Yes, Europe did have great entrepreneurial culture in the past, but the point of the “founded in the last 50 years” distinction is to measure how things have been going for entrepreneurs who are still alive today. You can’t call a region
605.
by pembrook 2y ago
Please elaborate on the anti-entrepreneur shifts that have occurred in the US in the last 15 years that would disrupt this trend. I’m not aware of them. If this were true, 15 years would definitely be enough time to show up in some form of
606.
by pembrook 2y ago
Not sure how you could possibly come up with this idea — but I’d recommend not consuming hysterical media narratives and instead looking at actual data. This is a chart of globally relevant companies founded in Europe in the last 50 years:
607.
by pembrook 2y ago
While distressing, this was likely done specifically to 'pwn' Troy and not necessarily due to the email list on his blog being especially valuable to spammers. If you were on that list, you're not suddenly going to get a huge
608.
by pembrook 2y ago
> it is already a problem that most companies use US services, given that the US have become hostile to Europe. Risking a potential flame war here but I think it’s important to cool down hysterical rhetoric whenever it’s pushed. The US
609.
by pembrook 2y ago
Yes, the issue is one of rhetoric but it’s also the fact that border officers in most countries are afforded a ridiculous amount of power relative to their education/training/ability, and for a certain personality type in that job
610.
by pembrook 2y ago
Definitionally, government spending is centralized activity. Definitionally, non-government spending is market activity (controlled by each market participant, so decentralized). I would question why this data upsets you so much instead of
611.
by pembrook 2y ago
https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/exp@FPP/USA/FRA/JPN/...
612.
by pembrook 2y ago
Just google 'percentage of GDP driven by government spending' for your country of choice. This is some of the most basic and widely available economic data that exists. https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper&
613.
by pembrook 2y ago
Just some food for thought. The percentage of GDP generated by centrally managed government spending vs. free market participants [1]: - US: 35% - China: 33% - EU avg: 50% The disparity is again similar for interstate integration (in the US
614.
by pembrook 2y ago
Allowing for nuanced CSS selectors on each part of these components would get you 90% of the way toward resolving that tension.
615.
by pembrook 2y ago
This is sorely needed and best path forward out of the OS-specific walled gardens and rent seeking of Big Tech. If building interactive applications wasn't so difficult I think we'd see a big revival of the open web. We basically
616.
by pembrook 2y ago
Except it isn't. I too thought this was the case. Please talk to a lawyer sometime for a more nuanced take (I begrudgingly have). The funniest part about GDPR is that currently any organization that uses pretty much any US tech is in v
617.
by pembrook 2y ago
I would like to turn this comment into a gold plaque and point to it any time an HN commenter repeats the “EU privacy regs and GDPR are actually super simple!” narrative. As someone living in Europe who watches the EUs best and brightest mo
618.
by pembrook 2y ago
A financial asset with barely positive returns but uncorrelated to other financial assets is actually an extremely valuable thing. Heck, if you can find a basket of 4-5 uncorrelated return streams that only deliver 1% per year after inflati
619.
by pembrook 2y ago
While I'm mostly indifferent on the government holding strategic reserves of gold (which they already do) or gold-like digital assets (which is being proposed) I don't think Cliff Asness's opinion should sway you either way.
620.
by pembrook 2y ago
Chinese agriculture is heavily dependent on fertilizer and energy imports. A blockade would easily result in famine. In fact the history of China is just constant famines.
621.
by pembrook 2y ago
If GDP is growing equally fast in both countries but with dramatically different levels of indebtedness, you can unequivocally claim one is more productive than the other at present. Sure, either country might invent the next AI in the futu
622.
by pembrook 2y ago
In the short term, yes. Long-term, no (it would have the opposite effect). Productivity gains accrue compounded over time, spending cuts show up immediately. Government spending is included as part of GDP, so a 20% reduction in spending wou
623.
by pembrook 2y ago
If we're moving the goalposts to the 1950's, why not instead compare the 1920's to now? Hey why not the 1880's? My point is that pareto distributions ("inequality") are not some evil to be eliminated, they&#x27
624.
by pembrook 2y ago
What's more likely: The US becoming a Russo/Sino-inspired dictatorship? Or that most of the people in this thread a) spend a little too much time consuming partisan political narratives-as-entertainment, b) lack a capacity for non
625.
by pembrook 2y ago
Adjust for age demographics. Pareto wealth distribution also gets more extreme heading into retirement ages due to the nature of compounding on productive assets.
626.
by pembrook 2y ago
Any system that allows humans agency will end up with a Pareto-style distribution in that thing (non-linear). Doesn’t matter if it’s wealth, HN upvotes, Crime, Traffic accidents, Productivity, Tetris scores, academic papers published, etc.
627.
by pembrook 2y ago
How many human lives are you willing to bet on that?
628.
by pembrook 2y ago
It appears based on this thread HN has fully transitioned into becoming intellectually as interesting as the front page of Reddit, so why not skip the middle man and just link to it outright.
629.
by pembrook 2y ago
> “I actually don’t see a lot of downsides” You do realize Russia has nuclear weapons and a leader who has already hinted at using them if necessary?
630.
by pembrook 2y ago
Same for Skype. Yes, most acquirers bungle the acquisition (regardless of nationality), but the reason these companies decide to sell in the first place is because their future prospects on their own don’t look great. Skype was a consumer

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